Light (New Earth)

Although supplanted in modern memory by the likes of The Mist, one of Starman's earliest nemeses – and most frequent in recorded history – was a criminal scientist of unrevealed origins known simply as "The Light".

In his first appearance, the Light bedeviled old rivals and perceived enemies, whom he would kidnap and release after shrinking them to doll size with his "diminishing ray", as a prelude to a coup against the country's heads of government and its military. One of these was Doctor Selby, dean of an elite scientific college which the Light claimed to have been expelled from, who reported his kidnapping to Woodley Allen of the F.B.I., who in turn informed Starman. However, the Light and his henchmen had been keeping tabs on Selby, and so became aware of Allen's involvement and of his connection with Starman. Kidnapping and shrinking Allen along with his niece, Doris Lee, the Light in time also used his diminishing ray on the so-called Man of Night himself. Using his reduced height to his advantage, however, Starman was able to evade one of the Light's fumbling henchmen and retrieve his gravity rod, using it to force the hood to reverse the diminishing ray. After the hero and his friends were restored to their normal height, the Light was apparently killed, threatening to use his "disintegration tube" on them even as he accidentally hit a switch on his device, whose rays caused him to apparently shrink out of existence. Dr. Selby and his other victims were later restored to normal as well with the Light's diminishing ray.^[2]

Inexplicably, the Light turned up alive not long afterwards, now leading the League of the Octopus, a band of modern day pirates who operated out of one of his most impressive engineering feats – a fortress housed within a massive bathysphere in the middle of the ocean. Under his command, the League targeted merchant marine vessels, using a paint embedded with a strange chemical which their agents used to repaint the ships. Once a ship was out to sea, the League would draw it off-course with a powerful magnetic ray of the Light's design. As the ship grew nearer to the League's base of operations, the chemical in the paint would react to the magnetic emissions, first by flaring into a series of small explosions that rocked the ship before deteriorating into a purple knock-out gas that incapacitated the crew. Once the ship had arrived nearby having been rendered helpless, the League's fortress would arise to the surface for them to seize its crew and cargo. Once this was done, the ship would then be sunk while the Light often made a radio transmission back to the mainland, boasting of the Octopus League's rule over the seas. As before, Woodley Allen involved Starman, who would in time penetrate the League's undersea fortress. Thwarting the Light's attempt to steal his gravity rod, the Astral Avenger then freed the imprisoned sailors, who beat the pirates in battle while Starman captured the Light. The Light was then imprisoned until the U.S. Navy arrived, rescuing his former captives and turning the Octopus League over to the proper authorities.^[3]

The Light was not seen again until months later, having apparently broken out of prison, and took to portraying himself as "The Unknown" while wearing a trench coat with an upturned collar to obscure his features. Evidently at a loss for funds and equipment, he began spying upon Professor Juniper Grimm, a scientist experimenting in time travel. Once Grimm had completed and tested his time machine (which seemed to be almost a prototype for the Time Bubble), the Light sprang into action with a small gang he'd assembled, waylaying the professor before using his "time-sphere" to go two thousand years into the future. Stealing samples of that era's technology, he returned to the early 1940s to sabotage America's oil industry with an artificial thundercloud as a prelude to world domination.

When Starman again interfered, capturing his gang as well as the thundercloud device, the Light fled in the time-sphere, returning soon after from some unknown future era with the "Futurites", a small band of eight-foot-tall men who wore bulletproof survival suits. Having been kept busy until daybreak, Starman was easily captured when his gravity rod stopped working, after which the Futurites then rampaged in the city as a display of power. Finally triumphant over his old enemy, the Light then revealed himself to Starman as well as Professor Grimm, planning to execute them both just prior to nightfall. Fortunately, an unexpected eclipse – which Grimm had apparently learned of in his studies regarding the future – permitted enough starlight to recharge Starman's device, allowing him to defeat the Futurites and again capture the Light. The time-sphere, meanwhile, was lost when the Futurites used it to return to their own time, having discovered that the modern era's atmosphere was toxic to them.^[1]

A subspace vest created by the Light was stolen and used by Johnny Sorrow in 1944.^[4]

The Light's further escapades and current whereabouts and activities, if any, are unknown.

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

Science and Gadgetry: The Light was a brilliant scientist and technologist, able to build paraphernalia highly advanced for his day, including a shrink ray, a rocket ship, among other devices.

Weaknesses

He was not so ingenious, however, to figure out the secret of time travel, and had to steal a time machine in order to do so.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Diminishing Ray: A lamp-like device whose rays could shrink living and inorganic matter, and restore them to original stature. It may or may not also operate as the Light's so-called "disintegration tube".
Purple Flare: The Light and his agents used a green knockout gas, which could be fired from a specialized spray-gun or emitted by a decorative idol kept in his office. This was later refined as the "Purple Flare", a chemical which caused a small explosion when ignited before releasing clouds of purple knockout gas.
Ultra-Televiso-Screen: An audio-video transmitter/receiver with which he could observe upon locales despite a lack of camera or listening devices stationed nearby. Later, he switched to a more mundane radio transmitter for communication, mostly sending threats to the outside world.

Transportation

The Light originally used a rocket-propelled "spaceship" which also doubled as his mobile headquarters. It was equipped with a magnetic ray powerful enough to pick up cars and pull them inside a dock within the Light's ship.
As leader of the League of the Octopus, the Light engineered a massive bathysphere whose dome-like roof could split open, revealing a fortified building that served as the League's headquarters. Like his spaceship, it was equipped with a magnetic device, this one powerful enough to pull sea vessels off course from miles away. Its hallways also held traps, such as one room which could be sealed watertight before being filled in with water alongside a ferocious breed of octopus.
Professor Grimm's time machine, the "time-sphere", was a large globe-shaped vehicle which could fly by means of revolving, lifting it up midair before somehow transporting to other times and back again. It was large enough to carry several men inside, as well as large machine components.

Weapons

Electro-Thunder Cannon: The only known piece of future technology that the Light was seen to use, this cannon-like machine projected an artificial thundercloud whose lightning strikes could be aimed. He claimed the cannon could also fire electrical bolts directly, but this feature as never seen in use.

Notes

Although this character was originally introduced during DC's Earth-Two era of publication, their existence following the events of the 1985–86 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths remains intact. However, some elements of the character's Pre-Crisis history may have been altered or removed for Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, and no longer apply.
Although the Light never appeared in a Post-Crisis New Earth story, his existence in that continuity was established by a mention in a 1944 flashback in JSA #18.

Trivia

At the end of the Light's first story, it's unclear if he was struck by his diminishing ray or the "disintegration tube" he had just mentioned. The panels and word balloons alternatively declare that his body was shrinking and that it was dissolving.
For unknown reasons, the cover for Adventure Comics #63 matched the Starman story from issue 62, displaying an image of a miniature Starman fighting the Light, rather than the contents of that issue's story. Presumably, issue 63's cover was intended for issue 62 but was completed or received late, and the comic's editor decided to use it anyway.

Light (New Earth)

Contents

History